This invention relates a toll collection system, on board unit and toll collection method used for receiving toll from the side of vehicle applied, for example, to toll gates provided on the toll road.
In general, as toll receiving systems for the settlement of the toll for the toll road, so-called an open system, in which case the driver prepays the toll for utilizing toll road, and a closed system, in which case the toll is paid later, are used mainly.
The open system is applied for toll roads such as Tokyo Expressway and toll bridges and the like in the Metropolitan area and its suburb. In case of the open system, a certain amount of the toll is collected at the gate when a vehicle passes through to enter the toll road and no toll gate is provided at the exits of the toll roads in general, so that the vehicle may pass as it is.
The closed system is applied, for example, to the express highways for travelling long distance. In this closed system a pass is issued at the entrance gate, through which a vehicle passes for entering the express highway. On the other hand, at the exit gate, through which the vehicle that has utilized the express highway passes for coming to a general street, a bill for the toll corresponding to the travelling distance of the express highways basing upon the registered record in the pass at the entrance of the toll collecting gate and the toll is collected at the exit of the gate.
In the meantime, in the recent years, an introduction of a toll collection system by means of a wireless communication called ETC (Electric Toll Collection) is now under way in order to ease a traffic jam in the vicinity of the toll gate, which has been a weak point of the toll collecting system using such a pass. In this ETC system, a wireless communication function is used and at the same time a vehicle is provided with an on board unit, in which an IC card is removably provided, and a wireless communication is performed between the on board unit and the communication devises located at the entrance and exit gates respectively and the toll is collected.
When ETC system should be introduced into the toll collection system of the prior art using pass (hereinafter called a closed system), vehicles, which are provided with an on board unit, (hereinafter called ETC-vehicles) and vehicles, which are not provided with an on board unit, (hereinafter called non-ETC-vehicles) are mingled and pass through the entrance toll gate and the exit toll gates, it is necessary to perform toll collection available to the respective vehicles.
In other words, in the entrance gate of the toll roads, pass such as a magnetic card is issued to non-ETC-vehicles and in the case of ETC-vehicle, it is so controlled that the entrance gate number and the type of vehicle are stored in the memory of the main body of the on board unit of the ETC-vehicle and in the IC card set in the on board unit. On the other hand, at the exit gate, the pass is taken from the driver of non-ETC-vehicle and the pass reader processes the pass and the toll charge is settled humanly. For ETC-vehicle, the entrance gate number and the type of vehicle are read out from the IC-card of the ETC-vehicle by the communication device provided at the exit gate through the on board unit by wireless. The toll charge is settled automatically basing upon the read out data. As a method for settling the toll charge automatically, IC-card is utilized in a similar way to credit cards or prepaid cards, by correlating the accounting number of the deposit, that the driver has at bank, with the ID-number of the IC-card in advance.
In such a way, the ETC system can be expected to be in future a main current for the toll collection system for the toll roads, when taking it into consideration that convenience through cash-less settlement is elevated and that it is promoted to ease jam in the vicinity of the toll gates.
Therefore, as described beforehand, it is desired to generalize ETC-system in order to ease jam in the vicinity of the tollgates. Then in order to promote the introduction of the ETC-system, it is expected that requirement for new services by an ETC-system are raised additionally, for example, such as a service for reduction of the toll is executed when a travelling distance of a vehicle is less than a specified distance in the toll road that adopts an open system in which a uniform charge must be prepaid.
An object of the present invention is to provide a toll collection system, an on board unit and the toll collection method, by which the collection of the toll which corresponds to the distance utilized, for example, in a toll road adopting a prepaid method, can be performed quickly and without fail.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a toll collection system comprising entrance data obtaining means for obtaining data showing that a vehicle has entered an entrance of a toll road and data obtained from an on board unit mounted on the vehicle by wireless communication as entrance passing data; exit data obtaining means for obtaining data showing that the vehicle has exited from an exit of the toll road and data peculiar to the on board unit obtained by a wireless communication from the on board unit mounted on the vehicle as exit passing data; first vehicle specifying means for specifying a utilization by the vehicle basing upon the obtained entrance passing data and the exit passing data; toll calculating means for calculating toll charge basing upon the specified utilization by the vehicle that is specified by the first vehicle specifying means; means for obtaining data readout from a number plate provided on the vehicle; and second vehicle specifying means for specifying the vehicle basing upon the data obtained from the number plate when the utilization by the vehicle cannot be specified by the first vehicle specifying means.